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Project Vaulderie, a fan remake of Vampire: The Masquerade, has been shut down by CCP Games, the developers behind Eve Online. According to the group behind the fan development project, they were served with a Cease and Desist letter, essentially shutting down development of the remake.
The aim of Project Vaulderie was to remake Vampire: The Masquerade inside of the Unity Engine as a non-commercial effort after the game's original developer, Troika Games, shut down just under ten years ago.The group behind the remake had plans to talk with Activision as they were led to believe that the mega publisher held all of the rights.
Activision owns certain rights to the title but not all of them, a fact that was pointed out in the cease and desist letter: “While Activision retains certain rights to the game it created, CCP continues to own all other rights associated with Vampire: The Masquerade.”
The team behind Project Vaulderie is now looking at alternatives, which would allow for the remake to come to fruition. Unfortunately, this could take a long time so development seems to be off the table for the foreseeable future:
“We are avidly seeking a resolute course to continue working on a future game,” the team behind the project said. “But we cannot at this time discuss this publicly and with that I urge you to please be patient and hopeful that we will find a way.”
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KitGuru Says: It is always a shame to see decent looking fan development projects shut down. Hopefully the team behind the project can work on getting CCP's approval and eventually continue as normal.
just boycott EVE. They’re being dicks to vampire the masquerade fans so be dicks back.
What, are they afraid that the fans will make a better product? Guess that makes sense.
Well considering the mess vampire masquerades is without the fan patches they probably are.
I get the cease and desist based on it’s they’re property but so long as these guys didn’t profit off it then I see no harm done really.
This is why copyrights and whatnot shouldn’t even exist. it just stops progress of all kinds.
CCP should shut the f**k up. After the absolute debacle they caused over EVE, WoD, DUST514, Valkyrie and whatever other idiot crap they have up their sleeve, they are in no position to be making such demands. Since they have shown a willing disregard for their customers, the IP’s in their possession and their own shareholders, they should quit throwing their weight around.
I already don’t play EVE so dick status achieved ^_^
They can keep making it and release it as a free game via torrents.
I think that’s just far too extreme. That’s like saying we should ban everyone from locking doors because some people get locked out of their own homes. We should look at how to improve the system and make it fair to creators instead of to copyright trolls.
And here I thought CCP was a good company.
Would have been nice of calling it Redemption. or Bloodlines; instead of Masquerade. Those of us who have a clue, know that Masquerade is the over-arching name, and the video games were called Redemption and Bloodlines.
The title was really misleading when it comes to understanding exactly what it was they were doing. Masquerade is a pen and paper roleplaying game that went out of print in favor of the newer game: Vampire the Requiem that came out in 2004.
Masquerade probably got shut down not just because of copyright, but because CCP was heavily involved for about 5 years in trying to make am MMO based on the title called Masquerade. Though they have currently shuttered the project (lack of funding, and apparent lack of enough mainstream interest to make it profitable). I have no doubts they think they will try to revisit it later, or sell the IP. The money making potential of it would be severely hampered by the presence of a not-for profit game by the same name already out and existing.
It actually makes perfect business sense, even if as fans, it bothers us.
You had people paying real cash to get vampirism in ESO, and these guys plan a vampire MMO and couldn’t get enough interest?
The game was heavily predicated on Roleplay, and very little combat. Had possible perma-death in it.. and PC;’s reaching levels of power where they wold have say so on whether your character died, permanently.
It just had a host of issues that would have made it seriously more of a niche market game, and it wasn’t going to be popular enough for them to finish it.
and a new game like this hosting that very name would kill ALL profitability from it should they finish it, or try to sell it.
yeaaah, that will just make them sued out of their asses ./ “Cease and Desist” is basically “drop everything you’re doing and never pick it up again!!!” Kinda like dropping pens after a test back in school – even when a sentence is unfinished – but worse. xD
As long as they don’t profit off of it it should be fine.
Sadly, this isn’t about money, its about the rights to the creation. You wouldn’t rewrite another author book for example and just “piff” it up a bit to your own liking. Making musical covers is fine, making game covers is not. (which makes no sense to me personally.)